Briefs for October 28-29, 2025

I used to use Just Watch to look up what's available on what FAST platform, but they no longer seem to search either TubiTV or Pluto. I looked up a movie or two that I know are available on demand on Tubi and/or Pluto (including one I just re-watched last night to do a review of scheduled for next month). That, and the presentation of the reults seems to be much more skewed toward pushing people to various paid streaming services, notably Crunchyroll. Makes me wonder how much of a commission Just Watch is getting for the clicks.

I'm not certain whether I mentioned it in the previous briefs posting, since I've been seriously remiss on doing one of these, but YouTube TV's version of the box guide only seems to be going out about 36 hours into the future, which makes things seriously annoying for trying to schedule what movies to record. I've missed recording a couple of films I was hoping to get, and wouldn't you know it, but two of them weren't available on the Watch TCM app.

Tonight on TCM sees a line-up of "essential" pre-codes, which is in conjunction with another book that they're hawking. To be fair, TCM does have to make money any way it can, not that publishing another book is going to net them a ton. Wednesday night is dedicated to Lee Grant, before the Halloween marathon on Thursday and Friday.

I should have mentioned a couple of obituaries. First up is Samantha Eggar, who died on October 15 at the age of 86. I'll always remember her for Walk, Don't Run, although of course that's not the movie she received her Oscar nomination for; that would be The Collector. I happened to look her up on the TCM schedule, and she's got a couple of movies airing in November, although not together. The Brood shows up overnight between November 17 and 18. The morning and afternoon of that day is given over to David Hemmings, and one of his movies also has Eggar: The Walking Stick. Finally, on Thanksgiving, there's Doctor Doolittle as part of a day of family-friendly movies. I'll be watching the Packers that day while cooking the Thanksgiving turkey, thank you very much.

There's also June Lockhart, who is probably better known for her TV work as the mother in Lassie and also one of the mothers on Lost in Space; she died on October 23 a few months past her 100th birthday. But she was the daughter of Golden Age supporting actor Gene Lockhart, and her mom was also an actress. The Lockharts all appeared together in the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol, which I'm pretty certain is getting at least one airing on TCM in December as part of its Christmas programming. June was in Meet Me in St. Louis, which will also be on the December schedule.